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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 919.8904
EAN num: 9780618002016
ISBN number: 0618002014
Label: Mariner Books
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 304
Printing Date: November 10, 1999
Publishing house: Mariner Books
Sale Popularity Level: 578116
Studio: Mariner Books
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Product Description:
On November 12, 1912, a rescue team trekking across Antarctica's Great Ice Barrier finally found what they sought -- the snow-covered tent of the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott. Inside, they made a grim discovery: Scott's frozen body lay between those of two fellow explorers. They had died just eleven miles from the depot of supplies that might have saved them. The remaining two members of the party were nowhere in sight, but Scott's eloquent diary revealed their nightmarishly similar fate. It is a story that continues to haunt the popular imagination, and which has never been told more grippingly or with greater compassion than in this book.
Amazon.com Review:
British explorer Robert F. Scott spent three years exploring the Antarctic, returning to England a hero in 1904. His ambition was to be the very first man to reach the South Pole, and he overcame innumerable obstacles to assemble another expedition, which left in 1910. Scott and three of his men did reach the pole, only to discover that Norwegian Roald Amundsen had been there only five weeks earlier. Slightly more than two months later, Scott and his companions died in their tents, their bodies--and Scott's diaries--found eight months later by a search party. This account of Scott, having followed the explorer from childhood through his naval training and marriage, gives us at the end not only a national symbol but a fully developed tragic hero. Diana Preston commendably ventures beyond the longstanding myth, including material that shows how Scott's decisions and faulty judgements ultimately sealed his fate.
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Rated by buyers 
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The entire thesis of the book is that Scott's fate was a darn good attempt, despite the result. Unfortunately, Ms. Preston's arguments fall flat. By the end, the reader has but no choice but to deem the mission a failure on a grand scale through Scott's incompetence more than anything else.
Ms. Preston's failed arguments have been summed up by other reviewers well, so I won't rehash all of them, but I will add this. One of the aruguments she tries to use that Scott was a product of his time and that his actions, such as the pseudo-scientific mission, were reasonable given the times. However, she then also tries to justify certain actions, such as man-hauling , by stating that this is now fashionable with modern adventurers. Well, you can't rightly defend him both in and out of historical context. It's cherry picking and it's scholarly dishonest.
Ok, given my criticisms above why then did I give it even two stars. Well, it was fairly well written in the story-telling sense, if not logic. I also think it provided a good look into the British colonial mindset, which Ms. Preston still clings to in a lovely wigged-Parliamentarian manner. So while the thesis of the book is laughable, the book does provide some good, if unintended, entertainment. In other words, I finished it.
Rated by buyers 
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Diana Preston was written a concise, good book about Robert Falcon Scott who led a 1910-1913 expedition that reached the South Pole. Scott and his four companions died on the return from the Pole, but left journals that told of their ardous journey right up to the end. Scott lost the race to the Pole to Norwegian explorer Raoud Amundson who beat him by a month but in death Scott became a great English hero nevertheless.
Preston's book is not as good as two others about the expedition. Apsley Cherry-Garrard was with Scott for the expedition, but did not accompany Scott to the Pole. His account, "The Worst Journey in the World" is a classic of travel adventure. Roland Huntford's, "The Last Place on Earth" is a blistering attack on Scott's competence and character along with a favorable account of Amundson.
Was Scott incompetent? Well, Amundson made the 1400 mile plus trek to the Pole and back from his base camp in 99 days, averaging about 15 miles per day. Scott averaged less than 10 miles a day, the short Antarctic summer ended, the weather got worse, and he and his companions died. Amundson made good use of skis and dogs; Scott relied on man-hauling his supplies. The British apparently loved Scott in death because of his amateurism, rather than in spite of it. A timely and tragic death can be enhancing to one's reputation.
Preston is generous with Scott and tells a touching story of Scott's relationship with his ambitious and independent wife.
Smallchief
Rated by buyers 
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Books on North Polar exploration seem to take a pro-Peary or pro-Cook slant. Even the National Geographic Society pushes Peary's claim, because it also helped fund his expedition. So when a book like Bryce's COOK AND PEARY comes out, saying what many of us believed all along, that both men were unscrupulous liars and neither deserve polar priority, it's a breath of fresh air on the subject. Nevertheless, Bryce also tempers this conclusion by saying both men were skilled in extreme conditions and remarkable real achievements below their belts before they started lying on a big scale and claiming for themselves what they had not achieved. Bryce tries in a valiant book to put an end to the nonsense that if Cook failed, Peary won, and vice-versa.
Books on South Polar exploration must be different. Amundsen reached the pole. It's indisputable. Scott died bringing back the proof that he didn't get priority. Because he reached the pole and -- to the anti-Scotteans, more importantly -- he got back. However, Scott's expedition was not a failure. It was, very first and foremost, a scientific expedition; Scott wanted polar priority and probably deserved it (Amundsen wanted the north, denied him by the charlatans Cook and Peary, so he jumped Scott's claim).
Scott's reputation, unlike Amundsen's, has undergone a roller coaster ride for almost a century. First he was made a hero. Then the iconoclasts set in. Roland Huntford's book on Scott and Amundsen was the Big Nail for the anti-Scott forces. To them, Huntford's book is gospel, and to question it is to question reality.
But Huntford, a fine biographer of polar explorers (Nansen, Shackleton), was distintly and unapologetically anti-Scott. And while Scott made errors (the biggest being his modern-minded "diversity" in taking seaman Evans along), his expedition was meticulously planned and employed the latest scientific and techonological advances. Solomon's COLDEST MARCH lays some Scott criticism aside (and since Solomon is a scientist who has actually worked in Antarctica her credentials should carry more weight with the anti-Scotteans than it does). Scott and Amundsen were products of their class and their era, but both also had been on polar adventures before and both men knew what they were up against. Scott is often, these days, portrayed by his detractors (euphemism) as mercurial and indecisive and, in some cases (as in the dramatization of Huntford's book) cruel.
In fact, Scott's polar expedition was a tragedy, in the classic sense as well as the modern. Many events beyond his control led to his death, but decisions he made did go woefully wrong. In any event, it seems, in light of more recent evidence than Huntford's, the whole party would have made it back in most years, but conditions were different on that part of the Antarctic than had been scientifically observed previously. Scott made some bad decisions that led to the tragedy, but it also seems he had a run of bad luck, while Amundsen (and this is not a detraction of him to say so) had a run of good luck. It's ironic that Amundsen left a letter for Scott to take back (and he did) in case Amundsen died, but it proves Amundsen knew that, even with his methods, which seem the "right" ones because he lived, he ran the risk of death in those extreme conditions.
In A FIRST RATE TRAGEDY Preston presents her case clearly and with fairness, and without the judgmentalism that mars Huntford's well-researched and iconoclastic study.
To lighten up some on Scott, folks, does not demean Amundsen's achievements. It's not the silly either/or with the partisans for Cook or Peary. Both Amundsen and Scott could have died (probably should have died) and both might well have made it back alive. There seems to be, in the anti-Scotteans, the fear that if someone treats Scott with a modicum of non-judgmentalism and doesn't bludgeon Scott as a downright fool, it somehow makes denigrates Amundsen. Nonsense. Both men were brave, courageous and intrepid leaders. Their men deserve every bit of praise as being the brave men they were. Scott's expedition was more interested in the scientific end and Amundsen's willy-nilly chase for hte pole was an opportunistis to get the fame to do researches in the north, but the achievements of both neither man, unlike Cook and Peary, need to be given proper appreciation without the need to bludgeon the other.
Preston's A FIRST RATE TRAGEDY is a study of Scott whose time has come.
Rated by buyers -
This is a great tale of the fateful journey of Mr. Scott to the South Pole and the disaster that became him on the return journey.
Instead of rehashing the story of the book in this review, which other reviewers have already done, it's more interesting to focus on the book itself. I notice that many of those who rate this book poorly seem to do so because the author was too sympathetic to Scott, too hard on Schackelton or Amundsen, or point to other works as superior accounts of this historic tale.
I give this work 5 stars for a couple of reasons. First, she develops the inner psyche of each participant, digging into their personalities, explaining what made them tick and how that caused them to make the decisions that they made. Second, it's obvious a well-researched book. The author continually points out inconsistencies between the participants published (and sanitized) works vs. what they said privately in their journals. Third, the story is balanced. I supposed this is a point that other reviewers disagree on, for what one person calls "balanced" another person calls "biased". She points out what they did right and what they did wrong, not dwelling on either point. People who downgrade this book seem to do so because the author didn't berate Scott more for his mistakes and blunders, of which he made many of. However, I'm interested in history, and not finger pointing. Fourth, it's a great story.
The reading of this book is easy and interesting, and I recommend it.
Rated by buyers 
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Please read other works of Antarctic exploration before you read this book of fiction promoted as a work of historical research. Read books like Huntford's "The Last Place on Earth", Amundsen's "South Pole", Cherry-Garrard's "The Worst Journey in the World", and from Scott's own diaries "The Diaries of Captain Robert Scott" for reliable information on which to make up your own mind about Scott's expedition. Read these books with a nuanced view, using your critical thinking to come up with your own conclusions. I doubt you will agree with Preston's thesis when you have done so.
In my readings, I have identified 31 separate areas in which Scott's methods were inadequate for safe polar travel as compared to his contemporaries (Amundsen, Peary, Cook, Borchgrevink, Nansen, Shackleton, etc.). Could all 31 areas really have been a matter of bad luck, Ms. Preston? I think not.
If this is the only book you are reading on Antarctic exploration, don't even bother. While she writes a good story, it is just that - a story.
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